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Rise of the Tomb Raider

RotTR writer was unsure what the reception would be

"We weren't sure how well the evolution of her character would come across."

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Rise of the Tomb Raider gave us a new, tougher Lara Croft, a character who'd undergone tremendous pressure in the first Tomb Raider, and who'd evolved into a more mature version of the character. While this was one of the best parts of Rise of the Tomb Raider, it was only one of the parts that the writers at Crystal Dynamics were most unsure about. According to a new interview with Eurogamer, lead writer on the game, Rhianna Pratchett, was quite unsure of how players would receive the new, toughened version of the character:

"With the second game, we didn't have that element of surprise," Pratchett explained. "People had already been on one adventure with Lara. We weren't sure how well the evolution of her character would come across, how people would feel about it. How would they respond to a tougher Lara? The Lara who is more vulnerable and human in the first game, she's moved on from that."

"But we found players had moved on with her. They had been through the adventures. They knew what she'd been through. They'd walked through the fire with her. So they felt toughened by what they had been through in the past with her. That aligned player and player character rather nicely."

Pratchett also went on to explain how Lara in Rise of the Tomb Raider is different compared to the initial reboot: "There is a tonal difference. Crystal is very keen not to do the quippy one-liner Lara that characterised classic Lara. There's a part of me that misses that. I know there are players who miss that. From a writer's point of view, it's fun to write that kind of character."

"But quippyness and the devil-may-care attitude suggests confidence and resilience Lara doesn't have yet, so it didn't feel in-line with her character to be that confident and that quippy. Crystal just didn't want the same tone to the character. That wasn't my decision, but I had to write to their vision, and I completely understand that. It's a darker game."

It's still unsure whether the series will continue, however, but would you like it to?

Rise of the Tomb Raider

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